


no civilizing hides our animal impulses

by girlsarewolves



Category: Skinwalkers (2006)
Genre: Caleb is tamed and broken but not domesticated, Cannibalism, Cannibalistic Thoughts, Dark fic, F/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Oral Sex, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Movie, Power Imbalance, Rachel is a badass hbic mom, Serial Killer, Sonja is a vindictive bitch, Triggers, Unhealthy Relationships, Violent Thoughts, potentially triggering content, remember that when it's movieverse it's not au if she's alive, this is going to get incredibly fucked up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-07
Updated: 2014-06-13
Packaged: 2018-02-03 17:55:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1753541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlsarewolves/pseuds/girlsarewolves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a full moon the night he walks out on them.<br/>---<br/>(Caleb Varek isn't a werewolf anymore. That doesn't mean he's no longer a killer.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Potential trigger warnings for homicidal and violent thoughts.

* * *

It's a full moon the night he walks out on them. Hanging low and orange in the sapphire blue sky, it catches his gaze when he checks out the window.

They're out there, howling, prowling. Hunting them down.

Bone-deep weariness is an ache that settled months ago, like a heaviness he cannot shake or crawl out from under. A hand holding him underwater, and fuck, if he could just get out in the moonlight - if he could just break the surface and breathe again - but he can't.

Rachel calls his name, dragging his gaze away from the moon that taunts him; Tim sits up a little on the bed, worry forming at the question in his mother's tone. They don't get it, can't - how could they ever understand?

"Did you see something?"

Like a glimpse of the enemy? A predator hiding in the grass?

Caleb wants to laugh. Roll his eyes. Snap that his pathetic, human sight wouldn't catch a glimpse of them unless they wanted him to see them coming - see and know that he's dead, he's fucked, like all those humanists and their caretakers that he and his pack killed before...before it all went to shit.

He shakes his head. "Thought I saw something, but it was nothing."

"Okay." And she buys it. Relaxes.

Tim smiles and drops back onto the bed, covers not even pulled down. He's already half-out; tired from the long hours on the road, the amount of blood they've had to take lately.

Caleb isn't sure how they keep surviving their little run-ins.

Caleb isn't sure how he keeps surviving this monotony. This endless pointlessness. He isn't sure how he keeps surviving the cramped confines of the truck. The tightness of his human skin - it never sheds, it never fucking comes off - or the cramps and pains that plague his worn and beaten up human body.

He wants to look out the window again. So bad he's clenched his fists to hide the shaking. He wants to howl at the moon again.

Rachel checks over their weapons. Checks their supplies. Tucks their son into bed and comes over to him - like they're still a married couple instead of two people pretending for their kid, she reaches out now and then.

Tonight she touches his shoulder. "You okay?"

And he could punch her. Or laugh. Or - he fucking hates her for this, hates her and her son, his son, and most of all himself - break down and sob.

Once he was an alpha and an apex predator.

Now he's dying meat. The kind he used to feast on.

"I need some air."

He moves towards the door, and she grabs his hand. He clenches his eyes shut when she squeezes. He sees the longing on her face, but then it's hate and anger and betrayal, and her eyes are a different shape, her lips darker, hair ink black and wilder. And it nearly cripples him, when he sees her, and he almost looks back at Rachel to see if that will dull the pain.

"I know things are...difficult. But we'll make this work. We've done pretty well so far." She believes every word she's saying; Rachel has always been gullible and naive. She's so hard to reach by most people, but Caleb has always easily reached people. And when you reach Rachel, she's far too trusting. Far too forgiving. Far too clingy and needy and dependent and smothering and suffocating, and her hands keep holding him underwater.

Caleb doesn't know in what lifetime this existence they have could be construed as making things work or doing pretty well.

Oh, how much he wants to grab her neck and whisper in her ear that he used to be a king among monsters, that he and his kind - he and his lover, his mate - tore apart pretty young women like Rachel and families like the one they don't quite make and men like Jonas, like his brother and the man who kept her safe.

Would it finally sink in that he's not washed clean? Would it finally hit her that he destroyed her life?

He wants to kill her.

If he turns and looks at her, will she see it? Will she raise the gun and pull the trigger this time? Would she hesitate again?

He hesitated. She took his spark, his wildfire, and still he saw Tim's face and hesitated, confused. Conflicted. He was weak. So fucking weak. He replays that moment over and over in his head; he kills them every fucking time.

"I'll be back later."

Rachel lets him pull his hand out of her grasp and walk out the door.

Caleb opens his eyes after he hears it click shut, hears the click and slide of the deadbolt going into place. He opens his eyes and meets an amber gaze glowing in the distance. He stares until the shape comes into focus, until he can make out the outline of the body hiding in the shadows.

It's a full moon.

She beckons him, and he follows.


	2. one

* * *

"No. That stuff rots your teeth."  
  
Rachel Talbot put a fifty on the counter and gave the gas station clerk a stiff, empty smile. "Twenty on pump two and a pack of malboro's." She ignored her son's side-eye glare. "Oh, and can you tell me how far to the state line?"  
  
Timothy kept giving her the sideways glare over her hypocrisy as the clerk gave them vague, generally unhelpful directions. Her son finally put the rock candy and a can of Full Throttle on the counter top. "These too."  
  
It was like ignoring a base instinct, not sighing and giving her son a reprimanding look; but they had both outgrown such things.  
  
Sometimes she liked to pretend otherwise, though. Sometimes it was a pleasant fantasy, imaging that she and Timothy were on a mother-son roadtrip, maybe an extended vacation, a crazy adventure before he left the nest. Something fun, just the two of them bonding and getting out of a small town with too much gossip before he left to strike out on his own, attend college, pursue his own life.  
  
They hadn't seen that town in five years.  
  
"You know those things rot your lungs," Tim commented as he walked past her, towards the car, while she lit up a cigarette.  
  
Rachel took a deep breath and exhaled smoke. She closed her eyes behind her shades and savored the almost instantaneous calming effect the nicotine had on her. She hadn't indulged in this weakness in almost two months. She'd stopped trying to quit, instead taking extended breaks.  
  
"Shut up and eat your candy," she replied in annoyance as she opened her eyes and approached the vehicle. She walked over to the passenger side and tossed her son the keys. "And pump the gas."  
  
Timothy didn't even glance her way as he caught the keys one-handed, the other bringing the shiny, blue, crunchy sugar up to his mouth. "Like I'd let you anywhere near a pump when you're smoking."  
  
Laying her head back against the head restraint, Rachel inhaled again and smirked at her son's almost scolding tone. She heard herself in that voice; she heard a little bit of Nana, too. She didn't dwell on that for very long, though.  
  
Five fucking years.  
  
She'd had them for thirteen years. Her husband's family, welcoming her in with open arms and uprooting to move somewhere new, somewhere quiet and safe and far away from painful memories and disapproving parents who hadn't wanted her to marry so young, let alone get pregnant. She'd cried on Nana's shoulder and gotten drunk with Jonas (after she'd given birth, after she was done nursing) and watched Kat who in turn later watched Tim.  
  
But she'd always kept her distance. Always kept a barrier. Rachel wasn't sure if it was part of her suspecting something was off, suspecting the double life they all led - or if it was her being selfish, being so focused on her own pain and loss and so hung up on the one connection she'd really formed that had kept her at arms' length.  
  
And now they were gone.  
  
Timothy played tough. But sometimes he'd start talking about a memory, and then next thing she knew her son was crying and cursing softly because he hated crying.  
  
Rachel had often told him she hated crying, too.  
  
They rarely brought up him. Even though that's who they were ultimately chasing after. Even though he was their constantly changing destination. They didn't really mention him; never by name.  
  
That's what happened when your asshole husband ditched you to fend for yourself and your son against a horde of angry, homicidal werewolves so he could become a serial killer.  
  
 _We had a second chance, Caleb. But you only wanted to go back._ Rachel let out a heavy sigh. _Fucker._  
  
Timothy pulled the nozzle from the car and closed the gas lid. Opened the driver's door and slid into the car beside her. "Roll your fucking window down, Mom. I hate the smell of that stuff."  
  
"Watch your language," she snapped at him, lowering her window after he turned the ignition on. "Just cause your eighteen doesn't mean you can toss f bombs around in front of your mother." More hypocrisy; she cursed plenty in front of him. And she let him curse plenty of other times.  
  
Maybe right now she just really wanted to play normal mother and son.  
  
Tim rolled his eyes. "Yeah, whatever."  
  
That was more like it. More like normal.  
  
Her son turned the car towards the exit of the gas station and guided the car back into the highway. They resumed the drive towards the state border of Texas, aiming for New Mexico. They'd seen the article online, the details of a mutilated body and where it was found. The same MO that they'd learned was the new killing - hunting - pattern of Caleb Varek.  
  
Yeah, they were the perfect picture of normal.

**Author's Note:**

> This is an idea that's been in my head for a little while now, and I decided to give it a go. It's something I previously explored in 'like a ghost you linger' but it's going to be a lot more than a longer version of that one-shot. I'm not sure where exactly this is going, but it's going to be a wild and messy ride. Feedback is appreciated. There will be definite script influences (I'm honestly just not able to shake 'em), but it's movie canon.
> 
> There will be some incredibly dark, disturbing themes and scenes of violence, but on the plus side some graphic sex in the future as well. More tags will be added as needed, and I will try to remember to put content/trigger warnings in a note before chapters.


End file.
